Blues Bash Music Review: North Mississippi Allstars' "51 Phantom"

Much like jazz, most young people get introduced to the blues from artists who mix it with a more mainstream type of music, which usually means rock. Twenty years ago, Stevie Ray Vaughan's music was the gateway to the straight blues, while the young Jonny Lang led the way there near the turn of the millennium. Today's blues heroes to the Gen-X and Gen-Y crowd like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the Black Keys appeal to those groups by filtering the blues through the sound of alternative or indie rock.

Last week's OTM was a hybrid of rock and Chicago electric blues by a guy who's been doing it for a long time. This week, we shine the spotlight on a song that combines alt-rock with northern Mississippi blues by a relatively new outfit of young players with some fresh ideas. The North Mississippi Allstars is a Memphis-area trio comprised of guitarist/singer Luther Dickinson, drummer/pianist/singer Cody Dickinson, and bassist Chris Chew. (Note: they've since grown to a quartet with the addition of Duwayne Burnside.)

The Dickinson brothers were already veterans of the Memphis music scene by the time they became adults, since their father Jim Dickinson was one of the more highly respected producers in town. As kids, they soaked in sessions involving bands like the Replacements, Mojo Nixon, and The Spin Doctors. Meanwhile, their upbringing in the hills of northern Mississippi exposed them to the music of legends from that region: Fred McDowell, Junior Kimbrough, and R.L. Burnside, with their modal, often narcotic style of blues. By the time they added Chew to form the Allstars, following a foray into punk, the ingredients were all there for their unique blend of music both old and new.

The boys debuted with an album full of northern Mississippi blues covers for 2000's Shake Hands With Shorty. The next year, they followed up with a set of originals that showed the strong influence of the covers on the previous album called 51 Phantom.

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